A pocket full of books

Games on the iPhone are nice, having books on hand make you feel a little less guilty about trying to keep the kid occupied on mile-long supermarket checkout lines. Now you can always have books on hand without carting around pounds of hardbacks: PicPocket Books adapts great kids’ books for the iPhone, and they start at just a buck apiece in iTunes.

You can read the stories aloud or turn on the built-in narration, and kids can learn along as each spoken word is highlighted, too. Sure, there’s a little bit of (subtle) animation, in some stories, and sometimes touching the picture elicits an extra sound like a cat meowing, but for the most part, these are true-to-the-original audio books.

Round is a Mooncake, pictured here, would be a great selection for Chinese New Year coming up in February, and a great title to test the app out. And really, given the “Again! Again!” nature of small people and favorite books, could you really go wrong with an always-with-you recitation of a few favorites? Exactly. -Mir